Interpretive Summary: A research program designed to evaluate the influence of vegetation on snow deposition, drifting, is described. Plans for evaluation of snow conditions at three different sites across North American (one in Canada, two in the US) are presented and discussed. If successful, this research should improve regional and global scale models, result in better flood and drought forecasting, and in better management of water resources in mountainous regions.

Technical Abstract:
A measurement and modeling evaluation of how and melt are influenced by vegetation and topographic structure at three different experimental catchments in western North American (two in the western US, and one in western Canada) has been undertaken. This ongoing research investigates virations in the critical interactions between vegetation, topography and snowcover in different snow-dominated basins, how these variations impact upscaling site-and basin-scale processes for watershed and regional scale analyses, and how these differences are incorporated in transferable methods to account for the effects of sub-grid variability. By uniquely covering a transect of cordilleran research sites from 35 to 61 degrees N and prediction for North America that will substantially benefit model development and testing.